Why the Kalifornia Anarchists had their butts handed to them on May Day

Which brings us to Rule No. 7: if you're stupid enough to bring a bag of shit to a demonstration, you might as well use it. The police claim that rocks, bottles and bags of feces were thrown at them, saying that one cop's helmet was dented. But the video footage shows no evidence to support this claim. The only object that can be seen leaving the hand of a protester looked like a wooden stick; it was tossed—almost abandoned—on the pavement. Because the anarchists showed up with all this gear and never used it, they looked stupid and amateurish.

Rule No. 8: protect your communications. This may be the most important point. Police say they learned of the demonstration by intercepting an e-mail posted by the Kalifornia Anarchists; it advised participants to come prepared with gas masks, protective gear, spray paint and other accoutrements of street combat. Yet a copy of the downloaded gear list police provided to the Weekly makes no mention of the Kalifornia Anarchists or any Long Beach protest. Indeed, it was posted on the Internet by a New York-based organization, NYC Ya Basta.

It seems more likely that police learned of the demonstration from an informant. Which leads to one final piece of advice for the Kalifornia Anarchists: once you get out of jail, ease up on the protests in favor of a new pastime, recently popularized by ABC. It's time for you to play that classic left-wing game Who's the Mole?